I felt like I was on the winning side. Their Schadenfreude didn’t feel dangerous… it felt old-fashioned.

On the way home I listened to something on NPR about a group called LA Jews for Peace.

A group of Jewish Americans committed to peace in the Middle East through a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, and opposition to American militarism, imperialism, and exceptionalism.

Their spokesman bemoaned America’s UN vote against Palestine.

America, like the old white men at the coffee shop, seems unable to comprehend or adapt to the changing world.

What the white men at the coffee shop don’t seem to acknowledge: they have more in common with their President than they seem to realize. I mean… Obama is only half black, raised by white folks… cup half full lads? Surely?

Obama owns his whiteness in the Whitehouse and flays his blackness on the stump.

Barry Goodman (old white jew), unfriended me on FB the day the UN recognized the Palestinians right to statehood.

Just nine nations voted against the Palestinian Authority’s upgrade to nonvoting observer state status, which passed the General Assembly 138-9, with 41 abstentions.

Voting “No” on Thursday were Israel, the United States and Canada, joined by the Czech Republic, Panama and several Pacific island nations: Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau. The Pacific nations typically support the U.S. and Israel at the U.N. on key General Assembly resolutions.

In the face of this terrific news self hating jews like Barry Goodman reacted like spoiled, entitled children.

In a unanimous resolution passed Sunday, Israel’s Cabinet said it would not negotiate on the basis of the General Assembly’s recognition of a state of Palestine in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.

“The unilateral step taken by the Palestinians at the United Nations violates peace agreements,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained, justifying Israel’s rejection of the U.N. vote.

Astoundingly, he bleated:

“The only way to Palestinian statehood and peace is through direct negotiations with Israel.”

Then he told the rest of the non compliant world he was going to hold onto money that was owed to the Palestinians and build all over their shit.

2.

I don’t trust any of the gay men I meet in LA. Industry men.

Bryan. WTF?

I had lunch with one of Bryan’s boy toys yesterday, the second in one week. I met a technician Bryan works with, Bryan says, “I don’t want to direct movies, I want someone else to direct them and I critique their results.”

After I started defending the Palestinians during the Israeli bombardment Guy S (second rate Bryan sycophant) tells me that they all hate me. That’s like music to my ears.

I call Tom. Tom denies what I already know to be the truth.

They know, they all know that sooner or later I’m going to write everything down.

As my gay friends, blindly devoted to President Obama, danced with joy at the news that gay marriage was being approved by popular vote in three states… the first of its kind, that an ‘out’ lesbian had been elected to the US senate and that ‘their guy’ was going back to the White House… I shifted uncomfortably in my bed.

In May, after years of unconvincingly claiming that his (Obama’s) view on gay marriage was “evolving”, it miraculously matured five months before an election as support from gay and lesbian voters and young people – who are far more likely to support marriage equality – appeared to be softening. A month later he halted the deportation of thousands of young undocumented immigrants with an executive order.

He could have done either one at any time.

The Guardian

As the results came in I watched my Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr feeds explode.

Lance Black told us that he was crying so hard with gratitude for the people of Maine, so blinded by tears he could scarcely post his thanks on Facebook.

All night I knew that I was witnessing something sickeningly dishonest, as ersatz as the twin towers crumbling seem to conspiracy theorists.

I wondered again and again about the relative values of my gay brethren.

You see, I couldn’t stop thinking about just one gay man.

I was plagued with the young face of Bradley Manning who presently sits in jail, a victim of Obama’s rarely mentioned dark side.

Since July 2010 he has been kept naked and in solitary confinement. According to his family he is going slowly insane.

Manning, you may remember, had blown the whistle on American war crimes in Iraq. He posted videos, unleashed a torrent of classified information to Wikileaks… his fury knew no bounds.

He had every reason to be angry. He related to the wholesale cruelty and injustice being perpetrated on the Iraqi people.

Manning’s had a crippling history of emotional abuse, neglect, bullying and abandonment .

As a teenager he was taken to the UK by his British mother. At school in Wales he became the target of bullying because he was the only American. The students would imitate his accent, and they apparently abandoned him once during a camping trip. His aunt told The Washington Post: “He woke up, and all the tents around him were gone. They left while he was sleeping.” He was also targeted for being effeminate.

As an adult he had one of two choices, he could take it out on himself like so many gay men and kill himself… or he could take it out on those who gave him the most pain.

He was rightly furious at how he was being personally treated by the military… facing his own demons as well as the worlds.

Every day he bore witness to atrocities against the Iraqi people, (the very people he was apparently trying to protect) and the atrocity of institutionalized homophobia.

Some soldiers, driven mad by war, punish Iraqis. A soldier walks into a village on his own and kills innocent men, women and children. Some take it out on each other, a soldier rapes or damages or kills a colleague. We know these stories. They are legion.

It was the largest set of restricted documents ever leaked to the public.

The Wikipedia page for Manning has a great deal of unsubstantiated detail describing his ‘true nature’, over turning tables, punching women in the face, carving words into a chair.

Meanwhile, the heteronormative lesbian (Tammy Baldwin), looking like Laura Bush in her puce, slubbed silk jacket was on her way to the Senate. Hailed by the gays (even the ones who have no lesbian or even women friends) as the great Sappho answer to the LGBT political conundrum, applauding as she goes down on the neo-liberal pussy… rainbow bunting festoons her office.

Is Tammy Baldwin our LGBT hero? Will the people of Maine win a GLAAD award like the people of Europe won the Nobel Peace Prize?

Bradley Manning is a true hero, a gay hero, a young man of conscience… yet he has been all but abandoned by the gay community.

Don’t weep for the people of Maine for voting on something that shouldn’t even have been on the ballot. Weep for Bradley Manning who sits in a cell today for showing all of you the crimes being committed in your name.

2.

According to the New York Times, preparing President Obama for his first Presidential debate against Mitt Romney proved an impossible task for even his most trusted advisors.

David Axelrod, a senior strategist, told a surly Mr. Obama that he seemed distracted, but the President shrugged him off. “I’ll be there on game day,” he said. “I’m a game day player.”

As it turned out the President was not a ‘game day player’, famously caught off guard by Romney’s meticulous debate preparation he crashed and burned leaving many of his most ardent supporters wondering why they were supporting him at all.

Aloof, dismissive and far more confident in his own ability than he should be.

For those who have performed on stage can confirm, no amount of rehearsal is long enough for any performance. The dress rehearsal is imperative, it is at the dress rehearsal where all catastrophic mistakes will be made, never to be made again.

To have no rehearsal, no dress rehearsal, to stand on stage without any rehearsal whatsoever is arrogant at best, monumentally dumb at worst.

Arrogance may be Obama’s defining character defect. More details reveal the President to be an even less sympathetic character.

Two startling facts:

He has never entertained either President Carter nor Clinton at the White House and complains frequently about being under valued.

“Stories abound of big donors who stopped giving as much or working as hard because Obama never reached out, either with a Clinton-esque warm bath of attention or Romney-esque weekend love fests and Israeli-style jaunts; of celebrities who gave concerts for his campaigns and never received thank-you notes or even his full attention during the performance; of public servants upset because they knocked themselves out at the president’s request and never got a pat on the back.”

There is an obvious lack of sophistication about the first couple that no amount of Jason Woo, Simon Doonan table settings or fancy interior decoration will ever mask.

Obama’s arrogance, his ego maniacal obsession with his own success would be worth something if he had some huge scheme, some Housman type plan, some Churchillian grandiosity, some Napoleonic zeal but all his arrogance boils down to… well, a miserable compromise.

Many liberals were annoyed during the first Obama term that Bush-era strong-arm tactics (including the ubiquitous executive order) were not used… even as the President was bullied relentlessly by house Republicans after he lost control of Congress.

After the ‘shellacking’ he continue his obsequious placating of the far right of the Republican party. Rather than insist on defending his oft lauded centrist position he crawled ignominiously further right to placate his foes.

The most annoying leitmotif of President Obama’s last four years, a recurring theme… must be his constant reference to himself as The President because if he didn’t remind you who he was… you might forget.

“I’m the president.” he tells anyone who will listen. “I’m the President!” he smiles, like JayZ might tell you he had sold more tracks on iTunes than any other artist since the Beatles.

And if that sounds vaguely racist, I remind you again what Don Lemons told me about The President, “Obama is the kind of black man who looks scared of white people.”

There’s something to be said for this analysis.

Not wanting to prepare for the Presidential debate reveals Obama’s fear of the very men the rest of us want to see him stand up against: The Good ol’ Boys.

The very same men who are at this moment witnessing the end of their white America, the very same white men who could not believe America would elect a black President twice.

The man they had humiliated with obstructionist politics, like tripping the nigger on the side-walk… just because they could.

His fear of white people coupled with the pitiful jokes, the self-deprecating bon mot.

“I was too polite.” he offered up after the first debate.

It caused radical friends to throw up their hands in fury.

Barry Obama, against all the Republican odds, is President re-elect. It is up to him to start taking those who elected him seriously and not for granted. It is up to us to drag this weedy President firmly into the 21st Century.

Americans, it seems, are baying for a modern America.

The cabal of white (Republican looking) social engineers who stand behind Obama (Tim Geithner et al) , using their half-black, amiable front man as a shield behind which they steal the money…. well, they need to wake up.

There are too many vocal opponents to the wholesale compromise that defined Obama’s first term.

Those who supported Obama the second time around are delivering a firm rebuke. They want stuff.

The white men who have been controlling Obama, offering false hope to the Latinos and the gays to motivate their base… have opened Pandora’s box… yet the evil in the box seems poisonous only to the Republicans… for the rest of us it is the liberal air we breath.

However, this spurt of new confidence has not translated into any sort of useful direct action or changed the argument in any important way.

All that has happened?

The gays decided to take on the owner of Chick-Fil-E because he doesn’t agree with marriage equality.

Good God. All they managed to do was make that guy a whole heap wealthier. Thanks gays.

I hadn’t heard of Chick-Fil-E before the fuss now all I want to do is sample their factory farmed chicken sandwiches.

Damn you gays!

That’s not true. I’m not going there any time soon to eat anything.

Meanwhile, Elton is on vacation with David and his kid… and David and Neil and the twins… all wearing matching white cruise wear. Each surrogate kid costing $160k. A fleet of nannies back on the boat.

Elton laments that his kid will never know his mother. He’s quite right. Erasing mothers from the picture… is just wrong.

Amongst the gays I notice a new theme emerging, something that used to be hinted at, implicit… but recently… in polite circles… made explicit… there is amongst a broad swathe of the gays I meet… an appalling misogyny.

“I don’t hate women, some of my best friends are women.” they say (without irony) when challenged.

Those who have surrogate kids grumble that the women who sold their eggs or carried the child might want something more than the money. They might want to ‘see’ the child. They might want a relationship with the child.

They would prefer that the baby not see the mother at all, that the baby be delivered from vagina to the hands that paid for the baby, like a UPS parcel.

Apparently it’s now possible to take the DNA from two men and create a child without any genetic material from a woman. I was told this frightening news triumphantly by a gay man the other day.

“You would still need a womb.” he told me sadly. “But it’s only a matter of time before that (a womb) can be replaced too.”

I was uncharacteristically speechless.

Is erasing the mother from the picture just wrong or am I being old-fashioned?

He, ‘Didn’t see the point..” of women. “Women are our natural enemy.” He giggled.

“Are you single?” I asked him. He looked appalled. My question implied that I might want more than a conversation.

I reassured him that I tended to fuck people my own height.

His modern, bourgeoise anxieties included: he would never be able to afford a surrogate child.

That he would never meet a perfect man and marry him.

His friend Zach chimed in helpfully, “Surrogate kids are only 8 grand in India.” No problems with permits he assured us and the women can’t find you.

The gayby industry is being outsourced.

The vitriol spewed over me (as usual) in the Data Lounge is worth noting.

Writhing with xenophobic zeal these queens who hate me seem to hate me for all the things us gays are meant to aspire: beautiful men, money and uniqueness. Ill informed opinions about my house etc. can be ignored.

I feel sorry for the young gay guy who wanted to celebrate me then ended up apologizing for all the nastiness.

Those resentful old poofs who hate me? Well, you’ll have to try little bit harder. As you simper at home writing anonymous shit about me… I’m out and about having a great time.

Thank you very much.

Remember, after ten years a resentment has more to do with the person harbouring it than the intended recipient. Get over yourselves.

Of course, some resentments are fresh and well deserved.

My ex has every reason to loathe me and I wouldn’t expect anything else. I made his life hell after we split up and increasingly, every day in fact, I wish I could put that genie back in the bottle.

P.S. Do I think I’m better than most people? Nope. Do I look down at you from a lofty place judging you? Would I want anyone else’s life? Nope. I don’t envy anyone… ever. I really love my life… good and bad.

And finally, something more to celebrate.

As I’ve written before, I saw those amazing pics of the ex bf with his current beau. They looked great.

They are unashamedly gay.

I applaud his apotheosis.

It is time for us all to jettison the mantle of straight acting, embrace our gayness in what ever form that takes.

That ex of mine has come a very long way since I first met him, from the artificially deep voice, the bad clothes and heterosexual relationship (he even berated my occasional gay flourishes) to dating a man who skips around his closet in 6 inch heels.

Some of my friends who viewed the style u like vid wondered how a man like that could call himself a jock… well my dears, he can call himself anything he likes.

When you have really loved someone and they fuck you over… however long it takes, the aim must always be to forgive and forget.

Loving him gave me a great deal of pleasure and pain but it was something.

We sure had something. And, when they ask me what that something was I can look them in the eye and say, with all honesty, that it was nothing they would want… but it suited me just fine.

However an impossible fantasy it was.

He was like an imprisoned child back then, in desperate need of parole. Boxed in by lies and deception. He became my child, my gay child.

Like every daddy I wanted the best for him.

When I didn’t know where he was, I worried about him… like a child.

Now I know that he is happy… I am happy.

Wasn’t that always my intention? To make him happy, however he wanted it?

What transpired was completely at odds with what I first wanted… Because I fell in love.

I tried not to… but I couldn’t help it.

I let myself fall like an olympic diver into a magnificent pool of crystal clear love.

I set out at 6am for the Men’s County Jail to see my friend Jeremy who is presently residing in dorm 5200. Jeremy is a good-looking white man in his mid-thirties. A meth head with a penchant for transsexuals. He has two kids in Utah. He used to manage an ihop. He is the kind of character I couldn’t invent from a movie I couldn’t write. A charming man with anger issues. Like most inmates he is pre-occupied with his own case, another miserable drug dealer hauled off the streets. We spoke for thirty minutes, I left $50 for him to eat well and I drove home.

The deputies who processed us into the jail were very pleasant, polite.

2.

Yesterday we drove to Redondo Beach where we met with Democratic State Senator Lieu. The second State Senator I have met this month. He has a strange constituency, ranging from progressive liberals in the Venice area to hard-core Odinists in Orange County. We sat in the sparse office with his Harvard educated interns. They were polite but they didn’t offer us water or coffee.

Our successful visit last month to Senator Calderon lead to his decision to co-sponsor the Trust Act. The bill then passed the Senate Public Safety Committee and is now headed towards the Senate Floor . The Trust Act will make what happened to me less likely to happen to others. It may liberate the 3000 un-convicted men and women currently held on ICE holds in California. The Trust Act will demand that ICE follows its own guidelines, its own rules.

It is essential that Senator Lieu support this bill.

Lieu is an interesting man. In his Redondo office there is a huge studio photograph of Lieu and his family lounging on a white, fluffy rug. He is wearing a dress shirt but no tie. He has been a vociferous supporter of the LGBT community, especially the transsexual population for whom he reserves special respect.

I sat with Kristine Chong from The Californian Immigrants Policy Center and three other Immigrant rights specialists… including a day labourer from Mexico in the Senator’s dingy ‘conference’ room. Lieu’s people wore badly cut suits. We all began to sweat in the un air-conditioned office.

Antonio, the day laborer, spoke very movingly about the catastrophic effect ICE and the Secure Communities protocol are having on the immigrant population. Families broken apart, 5000 American children made orphans, their mothers and fathers deported. Immigrants are routinely forced to sign deportation papers or threatened with months held in privately owned immigration camps, camps that are currently costing the people of California 6 million dollars a year

The situation is tantamount to ethnic cleansing.

This state has enjoyed, for many years, low-cost manual labour on which their false economy was based. Now, these undocumented migrants are being rounded up like animals. Targeted on the streets, in their cars, in their homes.

ICE have to deport 400, 000 people a year to fulfill a federal government quota. Even President Obama’s announcement last week supporting The Dream Act didn’t stop three ‘Dreamers’ being deported yesterday.

I told my story. I told them what they must have heard many times out of Latino mouths. Spanish speakers, their accents somehow devaluing what they have to say. Listen to me. Listen to my clipped British accent. Listen to me eloquently tell my story. Pay attention to the dramatic pauses.

It is always very shocking for them (especially the starched, ivy league interns) that an affluent white person could have got caught up in the immigration net. They bowed their heads in shame. After 45 minutes our meeting is over.

They tell us that Lieu’s support on the Senate floor cannot be assured, he has to pamper to the right-wing element of his constituency. They say: Lieu, in the past, has been threatened physically for supporting immigrants rights. He received death threats. Pampering to the right? I ask incredulously. Pampering to the right will keep this state poor, our children uneducated, the prisons full and gay men like me… unmarried and childless.

Be brave, I urge him, and do the right thing.

As we are leaving we pass another group of men and women patiently waiting their turn to be heard. They could have been Odinists for all I know, demanding that Lieu hunt down every illegal immigrant in California and throw away the key.

Yasmin Nair: Gay marriage, as framed in the United States, is the ultimate neoliberal fantasy, in that it allows for a politics of the personal to masquerade as a necessity for policy change. In the process, it serves to distract us from the very real issues facing millions of U.S. citizens and residents.

For many gays just listening to the President say gay and lesbian and marriage and agree in the same sentence was enough to have them wildly screaming with joy. Heading to their local bar and ordering martinis and Brazilian wax jobs…

You know, I’m an old fart, I’ve heard many politicians from all manner of countries embrace their gay electorate. The ones I remember best are Paul Keating in Australia who gave an impassioned speech about anti-vilification and inclusivity (made me cry) and of course Tony Blair who charged Waheed (Ali) with his far-reaching UK gay equality bill. (did not make me cry)

It seemed to us, during the grim Thatcher years, that gay rights would never materialize…that we were not welcome in our own country…but I put my faith in activists like Peter Tatchell who steadfastly turned up outside the homes of homophobes, the offices of homophobic organizations, held incendiary Outrage! placards, got arrested and generally caused trouble where ever he could so that our enemy never felt like they could get away with discriminatory behavior.

The gay elite sneered at Peter. They hated him for his trouble making, they called him insane, they denigrated his direct action. Recently, Elton John famously said that he was scared of Peter Tatchell but now (decades later) understands how important people like Peter are.

Peter is a national treasure, brain-damaged from repeated police beatings, poor from dedicating himself to our equality…thankfully he has been embraced by the same elite who once scoffed at his anarchic antics.

He taught me: never accept anything a politician says at face value.

So, when President Obama, flagging in popularity amongst his own, wants a boost? There we are…the convenient truth.

Today, I managed to incite the ire of my friends and foes alike by sneering at President Obama’s ill-judged and badly timed personal opinion about marriage equality.

The day after the 39th state in the union denounced same sex marriage and civil unions…North Carolina…he decides to ‘bravely’ come out for the gays.

Not everyone bought the president’s evolution.

“Waiting until AFTER the vote that divested NC’s gays of their constitutional /civil rights to speak for marriage equality is cowardly NOT heroic.” Roseanne Barr

Either POTUS had been forced into sharing his opinion by VP Joe Biden who declared his support for marriage equality a day or so earlier…or the entire fiasco had been manufactured by David Axelrod so President Obama could finally reclaim and re-energize his base.

“The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction– beyond that.” Joe Biden

Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if the scenario had been planned.

The President merely said what any intelligent, liberal, modern man in his position must have thought for some time. I doubt whether his position had ‘evolved’. All that had ‘evolved’ was the moment his pro gay position could be revealed for maximum impact.

He was described as ‘brave’ his decision as ‘risky’ and his few words as ‘historical’. The interview applauded by gay groups and liberal straights alike.

Today, yesterday, I engaged in heated debates on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, famously pissing off Jesse Tyler Fergusonwho appeared last night on Piers Morgan gushing over the president like a Thai hooker.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson ‏ @jessetyler

@duncaninla change takes time. It’s impossible to please everyone. Especially those who make it impossible to please.

Within minutes of the president’s pronouncement his liberal apotheosis began.

I was bombarded with fund raising requests from organizations like the HRC who shamelessly picked over the bones of the ‘unexpected’ Presidential LGBT patronage. The Obama ‘evolution’ will net millions for his campaign from traditionally very generous LGBT donors.

The gays reacted with unbridled and unquestioning enthusiasm, as a community we seem addicted to good news and paternalistic validation.

Upon hearing the Obamamessiah’s announcement Andrew Sullivan, the gay pundit had ‘tears in his eyes’. President Obama, according to Sullivan, has ‘let go of fear’. In Sullivan’s sentimental one issue world he succumbs, finally to the President’s change he could believe in.

Sullivan guesses that Obama has owned his blackness is the same way we must own our gayness. (I had tears in my eyes when I read that)

Andrew Sullivan gushes along side our friend Jesse Ferguson: The President’s endorsement will make young gays feel better about themselves, gay parents will know their kids have a place in the USA. In Sullivan’s exciting new world of Presidential fearlessness there’s a great deal of…expectation…I hope he isn’t disappointed.

Unless…of course, you’re the parents of children killed in drone attacks in northern Afghanistan…or find yourself out of a home or a job because the President is still fearful of the banks and his own military.

I found myself wondering what young straight people were thinking. Those who have supported the abstract notion of marriage equality but now peer at it cautiously…startled by the Presidential candor…like it’s a real issue and not something they have patiently listened to their gay friends bang on about.

Straight people might agree in principle with marriage equality but when ever we find this issue on the ballot…we lose.

Black voters, led by black churches, have played key roles in blocking same-sex marriage in states like California, where 2008 exit polls indicated about 70 percent black opposition, and Maryland, where black Democrats were part of a statehouse coalition that stalled a gay marriage bill in 2011.

Which brings me to this: The nub, the thorny question of style.

I have never liked the word marriage. It is steeped in heterosexual tradition.

I have never felt like I wanted to own this non secular word. It has nothing to do with me or the language and traditions of the gay life I evolved along side other men and women if the UK.

Yasmin Nair: “The fight for gay marriage, in granting that institution so much importance, is slowly eroding the possibility that the rest of the population might get rights and benefits without marrying each other. The fight over gay marriage has emerged as a progressive cause that all progressive straights should join when, in fact, it’s a deeply conservative movement that strips our movement of any imagination. Instead of asking for one way to grant rights and benefits, we ought to be advocating for a multiplicity of options.”

It is my understanding that when Waheed Ali was given the choice…he chose (after consultation) civil union as the way forward for British Gays and Lesbians. Now, 15 years later, those words are once again being re-evaluated. British gays are demanding the word marriage. Not my choice but, thankfully, they are fighting from a position of power.

Their equal rights already assured the word marriage is merely the icing on the equality cake…nor thankfully are the LGBT community in the UK hankering for the Queen to validate their position.

Once upon a time Civil Unions were mooted then tentatively offered to the LGBT community here in the USA but…they turned them down flat.

Even George W Bush thought Civil Unions a good idea. The LGBT community said they were not prepared to be separate but equal yet in the same breath tried convincing the skeptical that incremental baby steps toward marriage equality was the only way.

Now, even Civil Unions are being outlawed for gay people. Since Bush left office the right wing has become insanely entrenched, enraged, intractable….and unbelievably…more right wing.

Later, in the ‘historic’ interview President Obama made it clear what he considered important elements of a marriage: Commitment and monogamy. I nearly choked. So many of my gay friends do not rate monogamy highly on their list of per-requisites for a good gay marriage.

We are entering uncharted moral territory.

Yesterday, my educated American friends were baffled and confused when I said: Capitalism discovered that the LGBT community was generally well educated and affluent…and could be bought.

It is indeed a very interesting time to be gay in the USA. However, I’d like to see less simpering, fewer baby steps and more activism. Less cowardice and ass bleaching and more brave souls willing to be arrested and stand up for the rights they expect others to win for them.

What we do with this presidential approval is up to us.

The only time I have ever felt proud of American gays in my life time was when prop 8 was ratified. The people took to the streets, they ensnared the traffic of Los Angeles, stormed Mormon churches and caused mayhem in the city.

It was a night to be proud to be gay and I urge you all to remember the anger you felt that night because you must feel that anger every night until you are equal in every way.

Jeanne Cordova: “At the time, selling out our radical underpinnings made me very sad. We egg-throwers had to morph into omelet makers. Unhappily, I was left with the realization that all social movements start with radical ideology, but unless they progress to a blood and guts revolution, like a socialist overthrow, movements must inevitably adopt a civil rights and assimilationist stance or die out.”

Not only are you despicable for decrying gay marriage but now you have forced a black man in the highest office in the land to show his birth certificate like an undocumented worker. What now?

Now you have the evidence that Obama with his weird name is really American you have decided to challenge the authenticity of his education.

Working in tandem with Fox News, in the back pocket of Rupert Murdoch…you are as credible as anyone can possibly be who works on a fakereality TV show.

A bi-product of your unrestrained Obama hatred? The US press is finally talking about the vile racism that motivates you as well as these terrible Tea Party Republicans, these ghastly birther people. They are finally acknowledging what I have been writing for months: that these hateful people simply cannot come to terms with the fact that Obama is a black man in the White House.

His crude attacks on Obama may very well have finally focused the minds of this dumbed down, frenzied American media. Even the so-called intelligent press jumped on the Birther conspiracy band wagon. Now, like guilty children they stand back from the story embarrassed that they had anything to do with it in the first place.

Let us not forget that rotting at the very heart of this ‘news’ story are the mutilated bodies of countless black men, women and children whose enslavement, torture and death white supremacists like Trump, Limbaugh et al still gloat over.

Hung drawn and quartered, their bodies swing in trees for all to see. This is exactly what is happening now. An intellectual lynching. I say again, these white, resentful fools are determined to undermine this President, not because he is a bad President but because he is black.

Fuck you Donald Trump. Fuck you.

Robby and I walked on the beach yesterday. The Little Dog was bitten (not badly) by a three-legged terrier. He was terrified and screamed like a baby. He is a bit traumatized today. Keeping close to me. The wound is healing.

I cooked a huge pasta dish for dinner and we sat on the terrace in the warm night air talking about the origins of Christianity. The origins of the myth of Jesus and the pagan stories that fed into that myth. After a while Robby went quietly to his room. I asked if he was ok.

Fuck You John McCain for telling the world that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was a ‘sad day’. This is a small step toward equality for gay people in the USA. One Small Step.

The Senate vote is a vindication of Obama‘s decision to push for congressional repeal as opposed to unilateral executive action, though activists note he could have done both.

I am in Whitstable at my friend Carol’s house. She is having a huge party. It is thumping loudly in the cellar as I write. I know everyone in the house..everyone. This is small town living and I love it. Carol’s handsome son is a chef and has made delicious food.

They are downstairs drinking vodka and gin. They are listening to Senegalese music. They are eating the food and clapping and we are all wearing false moustaches.

I fell asleep.

At 5am I woke up and wandered downstairs to see what was going on and ended up with some good-looking 33-year-old. Really sexy man..blue eyes, hairy tummy.

I have been thinking a great deal about the life I left behind in LA. I wrote to a man I see around town called Dan Halstead..a manager. At his behest I wrote a little note explaining what has been going on with my health…sooner or later I will write in-depth here about the tumor..anyway, I wrote explaining everything and I received a two-word reply. I wondered why I even bother?

Before, before the show, before Jake, before returning to my home town..I would have been disappointed. Now, I just think it’s funny. His constipated reply made me laugh.

LA, NYC, LONDON…Sydney. The list goes on. I wish I could start again. Just like I did when I got sober. I started again and everything was new. Born Again.

The truth is: I am so disconbobulated that I don’t know where I should be.

Earning so much money these past months from selling art that I presently have no financial worries…but you know as well as I do…the drama, the interminable drama continues.

I could really do without what has been happening this past year.

Left a message for Phil to call me. When she returned my call I couldn’t bring myself to speak with her. It’s fucked up. Yet, I have held onto her for many years (for all the wrong reasons) so that she too becomes just part of the narrative. The unfolding drama of my life.

On a good note I have been speaking to writers informally about our project. I think the majority understand what the film is about. Most of them get it but can any of them write it?

I am really enjoying watching British TV. Good political debate, fresh ideas and very little tabloid sensationalism. The news, when not competing for ratings, does as it is meant to: inform impartially.

Thinking a great deal about AA and my other 12 Step programmes and how much time I have wasted adhering to a programme that looks to all the world like some kind of white country club. There’s more to mine there, these thoughts about my cultish AA.

Really want to get back to a time where I was free of resentment. It is a gruelling, miserable state of affairs. Every fucking day my loathing is renewed.

Have a great deal to sort out and the only way I think I can sort any of it, overcome the profound sense of loss is to create..make something useful.

Waiting at JFK outside a Peet’s Coffee and Tea drinking a paper cup of inflated airport priced coffee. Peet’s charges a dollar extra to drink coffee at JFK than at any other location.

I am now up in the air on my Virgin America flight back to LA writing this. My back is sore from clambering around Cooper’s air mattress and there is a small child behind me deconstructing the tray table. Over and over again. When he is not slamming the tray table he is kicking the back of my seat. On no occasion has the accompanying parent corrected the child. I am in no mood to correct the parent.

Apart from my deliciously pro Octomum rant, the blog post that caused the most negative reaction from readers was my blog about civility-also inspired by airplane etiquette. The lack of civility between people simply interacting, in public life, or between countries.

There is little or no politeness/humility/vulnerability evident anywhere and that, as far as I am concerned, is the end of civilization. Nor, I am afraid, are any of those attributes neither considered virtues nor championed by the media.

Yet, arrogance and self-centeredness is sadly understandable. The culture of self-obsession encouraged by ‘therapy’ (I’m too selfish to have a relationship, I’m working on MY stuff). Languishing in self. We are all we ever think about.

Against a backdrop of unsanctioned wars, lying politicians, unchecked larceny committed by public servants entrusted with our hard earned money! On top of all THAT-we deal with the cheaters and the liars who emotionally asset strip within the context of personal relationships. Who wouldn’t just concentrate on their own stuff?

When I arrived here I warned myself that I risked losing everything and that indeed may very well happen. The entire system is based on taking as much as possible from any working mans pay cheque legitimately or illegitimately-preferably as quickly as possible.

It still amuses me to hear people here tell me how much more tax we pay in the UK. That UK citizens are not free, that our healthcare stinks. Total lies! Comparatively Americans pay far more tax than the Brits yet get nothing useful in return. The only thing Americans really love spending huge amounts of money on is security. Hence the theft of billions of dollars in Iraq on bogus reconstruction projects and bribes to terrorists organizations supposedly keeping the peace. Their huge taxes, their government, their church and now the corporations enslave Americans. As I have said on numerous occasions slavery did not end in 1863, that was merely the year slavery was mandated for the rest of us. We are all enslaved.

Enslaved by debt, obesity, shame and fear.

Whenever I write about inequality I am accused of America bashing. Go back to Whitstable they squawk-if only I could get back to my darling home town-but for the meantime I am here and whilst here in the land of the free I can exercise my right to free speech. Is this what freedom means to you all? The freedom to steal from each other? To treat each other like shit? To allow some the right to marry and equal rights and not others? What kind of half-baked FREEDOM is this?

Is it wrong of me to want the very best for every man? To understand the frailties of men and make provision for them? To face up to the messes of my own making? Am I responsible to offer my hand when those around me are drowning or do I just think about myself?

We watch images of people desperately trying to feed themselves in Haiti or after Katrina and describe it as looting. Every day the government and the corporations loot from every one of us. This time they have gone too far, destroying the middle class, creating an unbridgeable gap between rich and poor.

My detractors fail to understand how much the British taxpayer gets in return for our supposedly huge tax payments. I can only speak on behalf of my family but during the past half century I have received excellent health care, three free years of university education as well as the BBC, public arts etc. The list goes on and on.

And, as much as I used to loath them-we even get a jolly good, year round entertainment called The Royal Family with all the prerequisite dramas of any good soap opera: Murder, marriage, duplicity, infidelity.. you can’t write this stuff.

I left behind, on the cold winter New York streets, a man that I love. Conflicted about us he may be but I believe in my heart that he will find a true path and follow it. If only he could let himself off the hook. I looked into his eyes and told him that I loved him. I kissed his mouth and eyes and remembered how hard it is to say I love you to another man. I remember the first time I loved another man-when I was just a boy. To another man? When two men say I love you how special and different that feels.

There is a storm brewing over Los Angeles and it seems also to be brewing in my heart.

I really need to connect with my 12-step brethren. I am experiencing a disconnect. My head is thumping and I know that this isn’t brain cancer just anxiety.

I know what to do-all I need to do is get on my knees and pray but I am scared of using up my only option.

I have a million things to do tomorrow. Cooper arrives from NYC so maybe we can do those things together.

I have to take action rather than let life wash over me. Yet, I feel tired-exhausted. Keeping optimistic in profoundly pessimistic times is exhausting.

I think that you can tell, dear readers, that I am under the weather.

So, this week I have goat shelter, garden plan and solar decisions to make. I have to prepare the house for rental and get the sofas that need repairing out of the house. I have to call the bank and respond to various requests that have been left unanswered.

I think that the idea of a relationship weighs heavy on my soul. I can’t go though any sort of misery again. I want joy in my life and to share the projects I have with another interested party.

Haiti is a ghastly mess. The images and news reports from the Caribbean are harrowing and add to my sense of helplessness. It reminds me daily that a large earthquake in LA could cause the same sort of terrible catastrophe. I have made several charitable donations and am shocked that Rush Limbaugh has urged his listeners not to give to any charities suggested by Obama. What kind of racist monster is he? Where is the compassion?